How to Build a Lead-Generating Website for Your Gym

In this article, we break down everything you need to include on your gym website to attract new members and retain your current ones.

Whether you’re starting fresh or looking to revamp your site, these tips will help make your gym’s online presence stand out.

What You’ll Learn in this Video:

• Essential pages and information for your gym website
• How to attract and engage new visitors
• Tips for promoting your content and growing traffic
• Setting up lead capture forms for trial sign-ups
• Using business listings to increase visibility

1. Choosing a domain name

Your first step toward creating a website for your gym is purchasing a website domain.

Keep your domain name simple. Try not to use numbers, hyphens, or special characters. If you tell someone your gym website and they need to ask how to spell it, it’s too complex. 

If your gym’s name by itself isn’t available, try adding modifiers like the type of workout you specialize in to get something that reflects your brand without being too complicated. 

For example, if you own a gym called “Let’s Move” that specializes in Pilates, the name www.letsmovepilates.com would be a better choice than something like www.letsmovefitness.com. 

Try to include relevant keywords in your domain while still keeping it short and simple. We recommend no more than 3 to 4 words under a total of 20 characters.

2. Deciding where to build your site

Popular website builders like Wix and Squarespace are geared toward small businesses and first-time website builders. They offer templates that you can use on your site, and allow for limited customization. They’re usually not very expensive – for example, Wix starts at $16 per month, while Squarespace starts at $26 per month.

While these options can be great for people looking to build a simple website, if you want to sell products, create sign-up flows for new members, capture leads, or have an online schedule with bookable slots, they may not be a good fit for your gym. 

Website builders like Squarespace and Wix have app stores and integrations that allow you to connect their websites to different products, such as marketing software or payment processors like Square. If you don’t mind piecing together different products to get a fully functional gym website, these types of website builders may be a solid option for you.

Next up is a more advanced option, hosting your website through WordPress. The main advantage of creating a website in WordPress is that you have complete control over the look and feel of your website.

WordPress has thousands of plugins and themes that you can choose to add any type of functionality to your site, such as a blog or online store. 

However, since WordPress is for advanced users with technical knowledge, setting up and maintaining your site will likely require the help of a WordPress developer. Like other website builders, you can extend the functionality of Wordpress through integrations that allow you to use other software in conjunction with Wordpress. 

If you’re a Gym owner, it’s unlikely that you have the extra time or income to set up and maintain a Wordpress site, so unless you already have extensive experience building websites and access to a Wordpress developer, Wordpress isn’t an option we’d recommend.

Finally, we have our own solution, Gymdesk, which includes a fully functional gym website as part of every account, no matter how much you pay per month. Our websites are completely customizable and fully integrate with Gymdesk’s marketing, sales, and membership management workflows. 

Since they were built with gym owners in mind, it’s easy to set up features like online stores, signup forms, and an online schedule with bookable time slots. They’re also optimized for both mobile and desktop devices so that people can navigate your site easily no matter how they find you. 

If someone is already a member at your gym, they can even log into a membership portal directly from your website to see and edit their memberships, register for classes, view member-only content, and more. 

You can head to gymdesk.com/register to get a free 30-day trial of our website builder with no credit card required.

In our next video, we’ll cover what sections to add to your gym website to attract visitors and turn them into members at your gym. Make sure to subscribe and turn on notifications so you don’t miss any of our YouTube content about growing and managing your gym. We’ll see you next time!

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Hey what’s up, I’m Josh, head of content at Gymdesk, and today I’m going to dive into the essential information you need to put on your gym website to attract new members and keep your current members happy.

Before we get started, Gymdesk is an all-in-one gym management platform that grows your business and makes your life easier. Every Gymdesk subscription includes a website builder that makes it easy to create a beautiful, functional gym website. 

Alright, Let’s get into it.

Essential website information and features

After you’ve decided which gym website builder to use, what pages and features should you add to your site? 

While your site will be an important first step for anyone who wants more information about your gym, current members will also use it as a resource to get information about class schedules and descriptions. 

On your website’s homepage, you should include photos and information about your Gym so visitors can quickly understand what services you offer and what your gym is like. This is also a good place to embed videos to get people excited about potentially training at your gym.

Other essential information to include on your gym’s homepage is your location, contact information, and hours of operation. We recommended placing your address, phone number, and email in your website’s footer for easy access, no matter what page a user is navigating. 

Your website should include a schedule so that visitors or existing members can see what classes you offer and when. You should also include descriptions of each of your classes so that members know if they need to bring equipment and if the class is suitable for their experience level or age group. 

You should also have a page with membership options. While some gyms choose to hide their pricing, we think it’s a good idea to be upfront and honest with visitors about how much you charge for your services. Don’t discourage someone from signing up by forcing them to call your gym or show up in person with the information they need.

Finally, you should consider adding lead capture forms to get visitors to sign up for a trial class or memberships. These can take the form of website pop-ups, a web page, or forms that are directly embedded into your website’s content. 

In these forms, you should collect a user’s email, name, and phone number so that you can follow up with them to encourage them to sign up. 

After you’ve set up the basics, you can consider adding additional content that features your instructors, a photo or video gallery, and an online store where you can sell merchandise or training equipment.

In Gymdesk, you get even more options that make it easy to set up a fully-fledged membership website, where existing members can log in, book classes, update their billing, and more.

3. Drive more traffic to your site

Create high-quality content and promote it

Once you have a functioning website set up, you can start creating content to generate more traffic. This can take the form of blog posts, instructional videos, or industry news that’s relevant to what your gym offers and what potential members might already be searching for. 

This content should be easy to find on your website and link to other sections of your website where applicable. For instance, if you write a blog post about the different types of BJJ, you can link to your class description page when mentioning a specific type of training you offer at your gym. 

If you create YouTube videos, be sure to embed those onto your site. You can create a separate blog post with a brief description and summary, then embed the full video for people to watch. If you create content and only post it on YouTube, only YouTube will receive that traffic, not you.

Finally, you should promote any of the content that you create on social media via sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. 

The goal of posting on social media is to find a community that will appreciate your content or sign up for your services. Ideally, you should become a contributing member of the community instead of just viewing social media as a marketing tool. 

If you develop an authentic presence online and share content that people like, you’ll likely see increased traffic to your site and improve your ranking in search results.

4. Create business listings

Our final tip is to create business listings for your gym. At a minimum, you should have Google My Business and Yelp. Since these listing sites already rank high in search results, people will likely encounter them first before heading to your website or visiting your gym in person.

Even if some of those sites do not allow you to place a link to your site (at least, without paying), just getting your business listed there with the correct information can help you increase your gym website traffic and new member sign-ups.

Conclusion

Creating a great gym website is an essential part of a successful gym strategy. When done correctly, it can be a great way to grow new memberships and keep existing members engaged with your gym.

What are some of the other questions you have about creating a gym website or running your business? Let us know in the comments below to give us ideas for future videos. 

In a future video, we’ll dive into some of the more technical aspects of SEO, or search engine optimization, and how it affects how your gym website ranks in search results.

For more resources on growing and managing your gym, check out this video’s description or head to the gymdesk article library.